


Electrocuted/Electric-shock

by maqcy



Series: Whumptober 2018 [12]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Almost Drowning, Angst, Caves, Creepy Pitch Black (Guardians of Childhood), Electrocution, Gen, Human Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Hurt, Kidnapped, M/M, Nightmares, Scared Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Whump, Whumptober, electric shock, nightime swimming, nightmare creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 06:08:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16279226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maqcy/pseuds/maqcy
Summary: Swimming in a lake at night, something grabs Jack Frost.





	Electrocuted/Electric-shock

**Author's Note:**

> I've started a continuation of this but my wrist is currently acutely painful so this is all I can get up tonight. Also, credit to not_poignant for my use of 'by the Light' and my general impressions of Pitch and Jack. You should check out their work - its incredible.

Jack waded out into the black water, feeling that frisson of fear and thrill that, though he was familiar with it, didn’t fail to excite him still. Wearing only shorts, he shivered at the cold night-time water. Wild swimming was his private thrill, the thought of which got him through the drab normality of his day-to-day existence.

 _By the Light, there wasn’t anything like this_.

He hadn’t swum in this lake before and it glittered enticing, the full-moon reflected like a shimmering circle of white granite, veined with grey.

Jack continued into the water, adjusting his waterproof head-light, but didn’t turn it on. He liked the blackness, and the way he could almost lose his sense of self within it.

Jack felt the same nervous thrill when his feet left the bottom of the lake and he wriggled his fingers delightedly as he kicked into treading water and then tilted forwards to start swimming,

He’d been swimming long enough that he was fully settled in the rhythm of striking out with his arms and with his blood thrumming warmly in his veins, when he felt something brush his foot.

He startled and inhaled a little water, coughing it up before he laughed quietly to himself. He'd had fish, eels, tendrils of plant matter and what he suspected had been a rat, brush up against him before and they never failed to make him jump but there wasn’t any harm in it.

 _Yes, hello,_ he thought to the invisible lake-creature. _Now on your way, please._

Jack gave himself a minute of treading water to catch his breath, looking up at the moon above as it was briefly shaded by smoke-like curls of cloud. Just as he was going to strike out again, something solid brushed up against his foot again and he jerked away.

_Haha, yes, probably a curious fish._

Jack swam forwards and away, not exactly unnerved but not wishing to have strange things around his bare feet any longer.

But although he swam for a good hundred yards, when he paused, something stroked his ankle and it felt disturbingly intent.

“Hell no,” Jack muttered, drawing his legs sharply upwards towards his chest as he reached up to turn on his head light. But he didn’t find the plasticky button before something cold and alive coiled around his ankle and wrenched him down so fast he didn’t even get to scream.

Then, under the black, heavy water, something fastened itself to his face. Jack screamed, then, or tried to, but there was a slick, oily thing clinging to his face, spongy like a squid’s flesh. Jack thrashed madly in absolute panic and clawed at his face, trying to get his fingers under it, but he couldn’t shift it and his steady downward descent into the bowels of the lake didn’t even pause.

There was suddenly air, a bubble of it against his mouth and his fingers found that the- the- _thing_ covering his mouth and nose was bulbous and he sucked at the air it seemed to contain even as he was pulled firmly down.

Just the gasp of air gave him enough sense to have the conscious thought that he couldn’t allow himself to go any deeper, that he _had_ to free himself of whatever was dragging to a watery death and managed to get his hands on the slick thing around his ankle, which felt like it was of the same substance as the thing on his face. He couldn’t get it loose from where it clung to him like an iron manacle welded to his skin, even as he dug his nails into it and scratched at its odd, spongy flesh. Panic grew in him like an awful bruise in his chest.

Not gonna die, gotta get this off-

The tendril clenched painfully around his ankle bone, cutting off blood, and then Jack went painfully rigid in what he’d later realise was an electric shock. The last thing he saw before he passed out was the watery glow of the moon above him, receding as he was hauled down into the depths, limp as a dead thing.

*

Jack pawed at his face as he woke. His skin felt grainy and he dislodged a few pieces of grit from his cheek before he froze with a sharp inhalation, his eyes wide. He couldn’t see a thing; there was only blackness and he realised he was wet and shivering.

_Well damn._

He coughed roughly and scrabbled at his head for his head-light but it wasn’t there.

_Where the fuck was he?_

He touched his ankle, remembering the thing that had been there and shuddered, getting unsteadily to his feet as he put his hands out warily. He could hear water dripping and his breathing seemed too loud, almost echoing. There was a rhythmic sound of water lapping gently, like it had at the lake’s shore when Jack got in – but he couldn’t be there, he could see no lights of the town and there was no breeze. The air felt stale and unnaturally still. So, a cave?

There was a sound of disturbed water and Jack’s hair stuck up on end at the back of his neck as he took a step backwards without knowing rationally why. He knew there was something there and he backed up another step, trembling.

“I was surprised to find you splashing through my lake,” a low, male-sounding voice said and Jack flinched, his feet shifting in the loose, sharp shale beneath his feet. “It’s quite unusual to find a creature like yourself out in the dark.”

Jack stared at where the voice was emanating from and swallowed down his fear as he curled cold, tingling arms around his bare ribs.

“This has been- interesting and stuff,” he said, his voice sounding awful and he coughed to clear his throat. “Totally not how I expected my night to go. But can I- go back to the shore now. Please?”

There was a laugh, harsh and sharp enough to make Jack twitch. “Your naivete is refreshing, but please, try to leave. I will enjoy having my Nightmares drag you back again.”

Jack went rigid with a flush of awful terror. He didn’t understand, but he felt suddenly certain that he wasn’t going to get out of this.

“What?” he managed dumbly.

“I suppose it’s not surprising that you don’t know.”

Jack felt something butt against his thigh and he yelped in shock and scrambled backwards so hard that, when his back hit a wall, he was temporarily winded. The voice laughed lowly but Jack couldn’t even feel angry at him, only a sharp terror as something lightly bumped his shoulder and he had to clamp his hand over his mouth so as not to scream. Tears pooled in his eyes and he worried that he’d wet himself.

_I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die-_

He remembered the oily things that had fastened themselves to his face and he found he couldn’t breathe right.

The voice had stopped laughing. “Calm down,” he ordered, but how the hell was Jack supposed to do that. “Oh, by the Light, they will not harm you. _Breathe_.”

Jack tried, and managed to suck in a lungful of the stale air and then another, even as he was shaking. Very lightly, he felt something bump his leg and he twitched but held himself still, shaking, his eyes squeezed shut. It – whatever _it_ was – bumped him again, and screwing up the tattered remains of his courage, Jack reached out with trembling fingers towards the whatever-it-was that was touching him. It wasn’t the same thing as the voice, that was certain, because the voice sounded like it was at least several metres away from him, whereas this thing was _right there_ at his side. Still, he reached out towards it, because he had to know.

_This is an awful idea._

He forced himself to keep moving his hand outwards until his fingertips collided with that same oily, spongy wetness and he inhaled sharply and recoiled, shuddering.

“You- you grabbed me,” he said, strained, not sure if he was talking to the disembodied voice, or the thing at his thigh. When the creature beside him didn’t immediately attach itself to him, or smother his damn face, Jack made himself touch it again and found his hand smoothing over slick sides.

 _Woah_.

It was bigger than he’d thought and, as he tentatively touched more of it, he realised-

“It’s- you’re- a _horse_?”

The voice made a noise of derision. “My Nightmares do tend to prefer that form, though I cannot fathom why. But _me_? I am no mundane land-animal.”

_Nightmares?_

Jack felt the horse-creature, the Nightmare, butt his hand with what felt oddly like a horse’s muzzle, but saturated with icy water, and its coat dense and smooth like a seal’s pelt. He petted it nervously, feeling slightly adrift with fear and confusion.

“What- who are you, then?” Jack managed to ask.

“Mm,” the voice said. “You may call me Pitch Black. And what may I call _you_?”

“Er,” Jack said, and then swallowed. “My name’s Jack,” he said in a small voice.

“Well, Jack,” the voice, Pitch, said out the dark. “I think we’re going to get along very well.”

**Author's Note:**

> so what did you think of lake-monster Pitch?


End file.
